Background

Anthony R. Pisani, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide at University of Rochester. Dr. Pisani earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia. He completed internship training at the Minneapolis Children's Hospitals and Clinics, and postdoctoral fellowships in Primary Care Family Psychology and in Suicide Research at the University of Rochester. Dr. Pisani is a licensed psychologist and licensed marriage and family therapist.

Approach to Education and Consultation

Dr. Pisani provides frameworks and tools that clarify risk assessment and response, then get out of the way. His approach supports caring and capable clinicians in forming meaningful connections and supporting patients' needs, strengths, and preferences. Informed by real-world experiences in complex systems, Dr. Pisani works with health care systems, service agencies, military installations, and schools. A dynamic clinician and consultant, Dr. Pisani is known for his honesty in raising and addressing common dilemmas, demands, and frustrations that that often accompany the rewarding experience of supporting individuals at risk for suicide in their journey toward recovery.

Leadership in Suicide Prevention Education

Dr. Pisani is a leader in national efforts to improve clinician education in suicide prevention. Dr. Pisani serves on the National Action Alliance Task Force for Workforce Preparedness and leads a Curriculum Revision Task Force for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. His publications include an influential study examining the state of workshop education in the assessment and management of suicide risk (Pisani, Gould, & Cross, 2011) and an article documenting the development and efficacy of his own approach to workshop education (Pisani, Cross, & Watts, & Conner, 2012).

Suicide Prevention Research

Dr. Pisani conducts research to develop and test public health interventions that will reach young people in their natural environments using preferred modes of communication and interaction. He currently holds a career development award (K23) from the National Institute of Mental Health titled,"Mobile Phone Intervention to Reduce Youth Suicide in Rural Communities." Through this grant, he has developed a program that will introduce incoming 9th grade students to key resources and skills needed to respond to social-emotional challenges that will face in high school.

The program leverages the voices and wisdom of experienced high school students to put 9th grade students on a positive trajectory, and uses popular media such as text messaging and video to reach a broad array of students. This program builds on Dr. Pisani's previous work identifying risk and protective processes associated with adolescent help-seeking and reduce suicide attempts: help-seeking norms, emotion self-regulation skills and youth-adult communication. In this work, Dr. Pisani advocated for "option-rich" (OR) suicide prevention interventions that provide a high degree of customization and choice to youth participants. Dr. Pisani is currently collaborating with rural and semi-rural schools in New York State to pilot and test the efficacy of the intervention.